Newsletter

By Grace Vojvoda in Assignments, JMC 3433

For this project I was to design a newsletter of an organization on campus. I choose the Undergraduate Anthropology Society (UAS). UAS is a club that meets weekly to discuss what is going in the Anthropology world. People are constantly bringing attention to new article that are posted. The club also hosts a variety of seminars with professors or people who work in the anthropology field.

The difficulties I faced in this project were finding interesting articles to put into the newsletter. Also trying to find upcoming events since the school year is almost over and there are very few.

I liked this project the best so far because I was able to work with an organization that I new well and it made designing feel easier. I’m the kind of person that will keep changing every little detail to see what looks the best, so even though I think this newsletter looks good, I would still go back and play around with the font more.

Front Page:

Newsletter

For the front page I included a controversial article because anthropologists love to debate over this particular topic. The other article is about an upcoming seminar on what to do with your anthropology degree, which will be incredibly helpful to those thinking about graduation. At the top I wanted to include some color, which I did with the strips of blue and the picture.

Page 2

Newsletter2

 

Anthropologists care more about information, than having it split up with pictures. So Included a lot of writing in my newsletter to cater to the audience. I did split it up with shorter articles, and one picture, just so it wasn’t so bland. I choose three different types of font for the articles, one for the header, another for the deck and a different one for the article itself, to make it easier to discern them from each other.

Page 3: Newsletter3

Again, a lot of writing. I was trying to design for the target audience. I included the strips of blue to give a color break in the page and the picture I included is of great significance because it is one of the only complete skulls of its time.

Back Page:

Newsletter4

 

I tried to make this back page fun and informational. Each paragraph is in a different font and some are a different size. I found the layout inspiration form Pinterest. The paragraphs are all of small little things to be aware of or things to think about applying to. They didn’t deserve full articles but were still important enough to include.

Overall this project was a good challenge in design. I took a lot of inspiration in design layout from Pinterest. I looked on the UAS Facebook page to see what articles people were discussing the most and found similar articles. In the future I would consider less writing and a few more pictures just to help break up all the writing.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

Direct Mailer

By Grace Vojvoda in Assignments, JMC 3433

This project was easy to me when using indesign. I feel like I am understanding how to use the software to make my designs better.  To start this project by looking at Pinterest for examples on direct mailers.  I found really useful examples on Pinterest. I modeled my direct mailers after one of the templates I found. It was hard trying to figure out what information to include and what not to include. I didn’t want to overload the direct mailer with too much information, I wanted to keep them more simple. I remember from my time in high school, when I was getting mailers from perspective colleges. I liked the ones that were simple and didn’t have so much information on them. I liked those styles best because if I wanted more information on the college I would visit their website.

Direct Mailer #1- Directed at perspective students in the greater Oklahoma City Area

Direct Mailer #12Direct Mailer #1

 

This mailer is aimed towards high school students who are heading into the summer and are making summer plans. I would probable send this out in the end of April to the beginning of May. I chose this layout because it is a fun way to get their attention. I tried to pick activities that most high schoolers would be planning for in the summer. The target audience is the greater Oklahoma City Area because those are the high school students who are close to the school and will most likely be able to come visit the school during the summer. It is harder for those students out of state to plan a tour and that is why i chose to target those high school students who are closer to OU.

Direct Mailer #2- Directed at those perspective students parents’

Direct Mailer #22

 

Direct Mailer #2

 

The second mailer I designed is for parents. I chose this picture of the statue on the south oval because it shows off how beautiful the OU campus really is.  I kept the front of the this mailer simple because most people don’t really take the time to read through mail unless it is important. The main point I was trying to make with this mailer is the name University of Oklahoma because that will make an imprint in busy parents minds for them to look up later. Possibly while standing in line or waiting for their kids, they may look up the school  on their phones. I put important websites on the front for quick references for parents.

This project was easier for me to start designing but it was still difficult. Design for others is still difficult for me because I have to keep my style out of it and design for what the client needs/wants. I hope by the end of the semester I am able to design things easier.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

Overcoming Obstacles

By Grace Vojvoda in Design for Emotion, JMC 3433

In chapter 5 of the book Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter, he discusses how going with your gut and how to erase skepticism and apathy in your website.

Walter discusses how we go with our gut decision everyday and that made me stop and rethink all the decisions that I had made today. I agree with Walter that we do base our decisions on our gut instinct and not logical thinking, “You use instinct to choose something thats good enough when the best option is unclear” (Walter, 67).  We use our gut to to choose everything from what we are wearing to the route that we take to work during the day. As designers we need to bring this out in our personality of our websites, we need our uses to use their gut and instincts and not over think the different choices.

Designers need to create a path of least resistance, in other words we need to design for the laziness present in humans. Walter discusses how Dropbox uses this method to their advantage in the form of bribery. I disagree with this, I personally find Dropbox to be confusing and more effort than it is worth. Maybe its because I don’t fully understand the site but I don’t agree with the belief that it is catered towards those who are lazy or more resistance to effort. TO use Dropbox you have to go through a process of downloading then uploading it onto your computer and then onto all the other devices you plan to use it on and in my opinion they don’t do a good way of benefiting you to get through this process.

Whatever we are designing we need to remember to cater to the instincts of our users.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

Designing a Business Card and Letterhead

By Grace Vojvoda in Assignments, JMC 3433

For our first project in my pr pubs class, we were asked to pick an organization to design a business card and letterhead for. I choose to do the Museum of the San Ramon Valley because it is a big part of my life and the community in the town where I grew up. When I was in middle school and high school I volunteered at numerous events hosted by the museum. My mom also came to work there as one of their executive directors, so I spent many summer days helping out in the office. It is a small museum, which is why it is important for the members opinions and complaints to be taken into great consideration. The museum was originally a train depot located in the heart of the town’s downtown area, and was later converted into a museum when the train tracks were covered by a regional park trail.

The museum mainly attracts an older crowd (those who are retired) and children in elementary schools who attend on field trips and with grandparents. The museum also has high Saturday visits because of the farmers market that happens in the parking lot right outside the building. The museum receives a significant portion of its funding from donors, so it is important to listen to their needs and wants when designing something for the museum. I tried to keep this in mind while I was designing the business card and letterhead. My main objective was to keep the feel of the historic building but add modernity to it.

Business Card Business Card2

 

Designing the business card was very difficult for me. I went through about 10 different designs and layouts before choosing this design/layout. I expected this to be an easy thing to design that I could do it in about two days, but it took me two weeks to find the right one and I know that I will continue to improve on my design capabilities and abilities as I do more projects like this. I choose a typewriter font for the business card to to stay in touch with the historic aspect of the museum. I took my moms position for the business card of executive director. On the back is an old sketch of the museum that they have recently started using again, so I choose to incorporate it into the business card to keep a similarity between documents. Also on the back is the mission statement of the museum which they hold very important and is posted on their website as well as their social media.

Letterhead

The letterhead was easier to design in my opinion. I included the sketch of the museum that is currently being used for publicity and the stamp of the museum in the top left corner that is commonly used for documents such as this. I wrote the press release over the current exhibit which is Cowboys and Cattlemen – Ranching in the San Ramon Valley, to help increase the number of visits the museum receives. I used an easy font to read since it is a press release and typically about a page long, so readability is very important on these kinds of designs.

Overall I enjoyed this project and I am looking forward to how I will grow in my design capabilities because there is always room for improvement!

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

Penny for Your Thoughts?

By Grace Vojvoda in JMC 3433

The other day I was walking to class when I received and email saying that I had a comment on one of my blog posts and I thought to myself OMG this is so exciting! My first follower! I was excited for all of 2 minutes because as it turns out my first follower was spam by the name of buy short prom dresses. I should have realized that the comment was going to be a spam, seeing as how I haven’t promoted my blog for other to see and read. But that got me thinking on how exactly does one go about starting to promote their own blog? I have seen Facebook friends post statuses about their blogs but how do you reach farther than that? I keep up with another blog, who is backed by a graphic design freelancer who learned to self promote her own brand on sites like Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook, it’ll be interesting to see if I will be able to use any of her tricks in self promoting (that is if I decide I want to take this blog in that direction). At the very least, if not much comes out of this blog, it will be fun to see peoples comments on my posts, definitely some self affirmation, though I do enjoy the freedom of writing knowing there will be no rude comments posted.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

Emotional Engagement

By Grace Vojvoda in Design for Emotion, JMC 3433

The fourth chapter in the Designing for Emotion book discusses the emotional engagement in websites.

The author, Aarron Walter, discusses the difference between “you may…” and “you must…” in regards to websites such as Facebook or Twitter changing their interface. Twitter did something which was remarkable and really great to keep satisfaction amongst its users, it allowed them to choose if and when they wanted to switch over to the new interface. Facebook did not give its users that luxury. I remember when Facebook switched over to the Timeline feature, I did not like the change because it was so dramatically different from the interface before it. I believe they could have made that transition easier for its users to accept and get used to. Maybe they could have previewed it for everyone to see before they forced it upon their users. Also, Facebook ma have realized that they wouldn’t lose any users, and if they did it would be insignificant amount, with the quick change because many people rely on Facebook to stay connected with their friends and families, that Facebook didn’t need to worry about softening the blow of the transition. Whatever their reason for a quick change, I believe Twitters change was more graceful and definitely more widely accepted by its users.

Walter goes on to discuss how apps use anticipation in their favor to retain customer satisfaction. He talks about how the app Groupon uses this feature when they send out daily emails to subscribers with their new discounts. Personally after using the app myself, I found those emails to be more of a nuisance and I ended up deleting the app and sending their emails to span. Anticipation is great when used right, I don’t believe a daily email (or several daily emails) is the best way to go to entice anticipation in users.

Overall though, this book provides great tips on creating successful websites.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

Mirror, Mirror

By Grace Vojvoda in JMC 3433

Mirror, Mirror on the wall whose the fairest website of them all?

After reading the chapter on Personality from the Designing For Emotion book by Aarron Walter, it inspires me to put more of my personality into this site. By that I mean adding color and pictures and picking out a theme for the site itself. It won’t be easy because I don’t have the best of time with computers, so learning how to personalize the site will be a challenge in itself. But I look forward until I can navigate easily and set up the website to my liking.

After a couple of weeks of blogging and working on designs, I’m learning how much fun it is to have a class where I get to be creative for a couple hours a week.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

Personality

By Grace Vojvoda in Design for Emotion, JMC 3433

Everyone has a personality its what draws us to others and creates a connection. Designing website that contains a personality or bringing a personality to a product, is something we should strive for, according to Aarron Walter author of Designing for Emotion.

Johannes Gutenburg who was the father of the printing press brought the personality of the monks and others who transcribed religious texts into his movable text-faces. These monks took great care in writing out the religious texts, Gutenburg wanted to bring that pain and determination into his prints. He was inspired to create something with the presentation of human. Walter also uses the ad that Apple did called “Get a Mac” which Apple use to “show you how you will feel if you buy a Mac” (Walter, 33). Even though this ad is no longer run it still sticks in my mind, I always found those commercials to be hilarious. It may be the operating system or the chic-ness of the design or Justin Long promoting the brand, I will never know which made me only buy Apple products.

Further on in the chapter Walter talks about bringing personality into apps on phones, giving them a ‘face’ to connect with. I don’t agree that apps need to have a ‘face’ with it for me to feel a connection or the need to purchase it. I look at recommendations from those I know or the functionality not their ‘face’. I have some apps that don’t have the best ‘face’ to them but still download them because I like what they have to offer.

This book is enjoyable because it helps new website creator learn some tricks of the trade and how to create something that will draw in an audience.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

From Couch To Blogger

By Grace Vojvoda in JMC 3433

Going from wanting to create a space to write out my thoughts and share things that inspire me to actually doing it, is more work but very exciting. I like learning about the different ways of designing your website to fit your own personality. The book I am reading, Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter, is a good book for helping with how to create the best website for viewers and creating a relationship with your viewers/followers. Writing out my thoughts on the book is still foreign to me and a little weird because you’re putting a little of yourself out on the web for others to read and judge but I am beginning to enjoy it. I hope as the weeks to come the awkwardness of knowing complete strangers are reading what I have to say.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda

Designing for Humans

By Grace Vojvoda in Design for Emotion, JMC 3433

The second chapter of Design for Emotion by Aarron Walters goes into detail about the evolution of human emotion and how that is worked into web design.

Walters discusses the Hicks Law which is a design principle. Hicks Law “states that the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number of alternatives.” (Walters, 24). Web designers should be wary of cluttering up their web pages’ home page. Walters discusses how Tumblr has a simple home page and is a great example of Hicks Law. I like the idea of a website de-cluttering their websites homepage to draw in traffic to their sites. I personally am a fan of clean and easily navigate able websites but I never knew that someone had already created a design principle about the idea.

Walters discusses the emotional evolution humans have progressed through. He suggests that humans are narcissistic and that we see ourselves, at least a little, in everything. I don’t believe that humans are narcissistic to the point that we seek what we know best in the world which is ourselves, I would like to believe that people are able to see things the way they are for what they are. I do believe that we see something familiar, just not necessarily ourselves. But his brief description of the golden ratio the ancient Greeks created is an interesting way to look at beauty in design.

Originally posted at Grace Vojvoda